DPP takes Ma to task on German unification idea

FLIP-FLOP:President Ma Ying-jeou said the German unification model was not applicable when he served on the MAC in 1992, the DPP’s Lin Chun-Hsien said

By Chris Wang / Staff reporter

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday repeated its call for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to withdraw his “one country, two areas (一國兩區)” proposal and said Ma “had slapped himself in the face” with his “German experience” analogy.

Ma said on Thursday that he drew inspiration from the “German experience” between East and West Germany in the 1990s, a concept of “non-recognition of each other’s sovereignty and non-denial of each other’s administrative power” when he formulated the proposal.

“The analogy was inappropriate and incorrect because the so-called German model was achieved with the prerequisite of unification. Ma has jeopardized Taiwan’s future with his own ideology without the consent of the Taiwanese,” DPP spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said in a press release.

Elaborating on Germany’s unification, Lin said that East and West Germany achieved consensus that neither side represented the entire Germany nor represented each other in the international arena, which was why the two Germanies joined the UN in 1973 and followed with negotiations and exchanges.

That was drastically different to Ma’s belittlement of Taiwan’s sovereignty and abandonment of any diplomatic effort to strive for equal status with China, Lin said.

Ma has flip-flopped on his position and slapped himself in the face, Lin said.

Ma said the cross-strait situation was different from the two German states and the German model was not applicable to Taiwan and China when he served as vice chairman of the Mainland Affairs Council in 1992, Lin said.

“At the end of the day, Ma cannot unilaterally designate unification — his personal ideology — as a national goal without consulting the 23 million Taiwanese,” Lin said.

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